“Didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “You just look cold.”
He eyed me, then the bill.
“I’m waiting on someone,” he added.
“I’ll be fine.”
That pride? I knew it. Same backbone Bennett had.
The kind that keeps you upright when life is trash.
I slid the 20 back into my pocket.
“Understood,” I said. “Stay warm, sir.”
He gave a short nod and went back to shaking the can.
I turned toward my truck.
That’s when Mooney exploded.
He hit the passenger window so hard the whole truck shook.
Barking, nonstop, deep and frantic. Claws scraping the glass.
It sounded like full panic.
“Mooney!” I yelled. “Hey! Knock it off!”
He didn’t even glance at me.
He started this high, broken whine I’d never heard before.
Tail low, whole body shaking.
This dog barked at strangers all the time.
But this wasn’t his “who’s that” bark.
This bark sounded like he was desperate.
I ran to the door and cracked it.
“Relax, man, it’s fine—”
He blew past me like I wasn’t there.
Hit the pavement, slipped once, then tore across the icy lot on three legs.
Straight at the old man with the gas can.
“Mooney!” I shouted. “Heel!”
He ignored me.
He slammed into the guy’s knees and plastered himself there, whining like he’d just found someone he’d lost.
The gas can hit the ground.
The man staggered, then dropped to one knee, hands sinking into Mooney’s fur on instinct.
“Easy, easy,” he murmured.
Then he said, soft but clear, “Hey, Moon.”
My heart stopped.
Nobody called him Moon.
Just me.
And Bennett.
I walked up, every hair on my body standing up.
“I’m really sorry,” I started. “He never—”
The man looked up at me.
His eyes were wet and sharp.
Blue, like Bennett’s, just older.
“You’re Caleb,” he said.
Not a question.
My mouth went dry. “Yeah,” I said. “Who are you?”
He swallowed.
The parking lot tilted.
I’d seen him once, across a flag-draped coffin.
He looked smaller now. More worn. Same eyes.
“You were at the funeral,” I said.
He nodded.
“You were the one who wouldn’t look at the flag.”
Couldn’t argue.
His hands stayed on Mooney’s neck. Mooney leaned into him like he’d always belonged there.
Graham reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded envelope, edges soft and creased.
He held it out.
“My boy told me to find you,” he said. His voice cracked on “boy.” “Didn’t know where to find you, but I knew in what area you live.
And who you had with you.”
Graham glanced at Mooney.
I took the envelope. It felt heavier than paper.
“Why didn’t you reach out sooner?” I asked. “It’s been over a year.”
He exhaled, breath misting in the air.
“Didn’t have your number,” he said.
“Didn’t have mine half the time. Lost the house. Phone cut.
Mail bouncing around. VA lost my file twice and blamed me.”
He jerked his head at the van.
“Been in that, waiting on the pension,” he said.
Anger and guilt hit at the same time.
“Bennett told me one more thing,” he said. “Said, ‘If something happens, don’t let Caleb disappear.'”
Felt like getting punched.
“Yeah,” I said.
“That sounds like him.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Mooney licked his wrist, whining softer now.
“You eaten today?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” Graham said automatically.
His jaw tightened.
I changed tactics.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll buy dinner. You tell me one story about Bennett I don’t know.
Trade. Not charity.”
He studied me, then snorted.
“You sound like him,” he said. “Fine.
Trade.”
We went into the tiny diner attached to the station.
The waitress knew me and pretended not to see Mooney curl up under the table against Graham’s boots.
We ordered soup and bad coffee.
For a while, we just ate.
Then Graham said, “He ever sing around you?”
“Bennett?” I asked. “Only to torture me.”
“He did that with me, too,” Graham said. “When he was a kid, every time he did dishes, he’d sing.
Loud. Off-key. Drove his mama up the wall.”
He smiled a little.
“After she died, he kept doing it,” he said.
“Said it made the house less quiet.”
My throat tightened.
I told him about the time Bennett dared me to eat a whole jalapeño during training and laughed so hard he cried when I chugged half my canteen.
We traded stories until the soup went cold.
Outside, the air felt colder.
“You got a phone that works?” I asked.
“Prepaid,” he said. “Minutes die fast.”
“Shower?” I asked.
He gave me a look. “You’re rude.”
I waited.
He sighed.
“Not in… a while.”
“Come stay at my place tonight,” I said. “You shower, sleep in a real bed. Tomorrow we call the VA and annoy them until they fix things.”
“I’m not a charity case,” he said.
“Trade,” I said again.
“You fix my busted cabinet and tell me another story. Deal?”
He looked at me, then at Mooney, who wagged once like a vote.
“Your dog’s siding with you,” Graham said.
“He outranks both of us,” I said.
Graham shook his head, but the fight was gone.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “One night.”
At my apartment, he hesitated at the doorway like he didn’t belong inside.
“Shoes off,” I said.
“Only rule.”
He obeyed slowly.
Mooney trotted around, then hopped onto the couch next to him like.
Graham took a long shower. When he came out in borrowed sweats and a T-shirt, he looked exhausted but lighter.
He sat on the couch. Mooney put his head on Graham’s knee and sighed like he’d found his spot.
The envelope sat on my counter.
I sat at the table and opened it with shaking hands.
Inside was one page.
Caleb,
If you’re reading this, I didn’t make it home.
Stop blaming yourself.
I know you are.
You can’t carry everything. I know you’ll try anyway.
My dad is stubborn. He’ll say he doesn’t need anyone.
He does.
You’re stubborn too. You’ll say you don’t need anyone. You do.
So if I’m gone, you and my dad are stuck with each other.
He knew me before I was a soldier.
You knew me after. Together you’ve got the full picture.
Take care of him. Let him take care of you.
Don’t disappear, Caleb.
That’s an order.
– Bennett
By the end, I couldn’t see straight.
A chair scraped. Graham sat across from me.
I laughed once, wiped my face. “Yeah.”
“He left me one,” Graham said.
“Same bossy tone.”
We didn’t say much else.
He slept on the couch. Mooney split his time between us like he couldn’t decide who needed him more.
One night turned into a week.
We called the VA. Sat on hold.
Fixed his address. Gave them a number that wasn’t going to disappear.
Once those were solid, things finally moved.
He got his pension.
He found a tiny apartment across town. Old building, thin walls, working heat.
I helped him carry in a mattress, a couple boxes, and one framed picture of Bennett.
He hung it over the TV.
“You sure you don’t want money?” he asked one day.
“I’m sure,” I said.
He nodded.
“Then I’ll pay you back how I can. Food. Fixing stuff.”
That’s how Sunday dinners started.
Every week, he came over with a pot of something and a toolbox.
He fixed my cabinet, then my door hinge.
Shoveled my steps when it snowed. Sat on my couch like he’d always been there.
We watched whatever game was on. Sometimes we talked about Bennett.
Sometimes we didn’t.
Graham wasn’t big on speeches.
He just showed up.
Mooney still barked at most strangers.
Mail trucks, dudes in hoodies, people who stared too long at my truck.
But when Graham knocked, Mooney went into full happy meltdown — whining, tail whipping, dancing until I opened the door.
Graham would scratch his ears and say, “Hey, Moon. Miss me?”
Every time he said it, I heard Bennett.
One night, game on mute, Mooney snoring between us, Graham said, “At that gas station, I almost drove off. Figured you didn’t need to look after some broken old man.”
I stared at the TV.
“I almost pretended I didn’t see you,” I said.
“Didn’t want to open that door.”
He snorted. “Good thing your dog’s stubborn.”
I looked at Mooney.
Three legs. One half-fried brain cell.
Perfect timing.
He’d tried to break my truck window for one man.
Turned out he wasn’t freaking out.
He was pointing. Right at the family I didn’t know I still had.
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